


Vows

by stardropdream



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Facial Shaving, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are certain things about the modern era that certainly lend well to hygiene versus the days in Camelot. But this is one particular tradition that Merlin and Arthur have both treasured, regardless of the time and change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vows

**Author's Note:**

> This is partly a response to the fact that my friends and I all have decided that Bradley James should never shave because he looks good scruffy. But then I thought, well, Merlin'd probably be the one to help that lazy idiot shave. So then this happened. 
> 
> (Please forgive any grievous errors in straight razor practice. I'm kind of going off memory with how my father used to do it.)

For all the things of modernity that Arthur thrilled in, this was something that tended more towards the old-fashioned, shadowed back the days long gone – centuries and centuries gone – that left Merlin’s heart heavy in his chest in a way that was both wonderful and horrible at once. Still, there was a tenderness with which he touched at Arthur’s cheek in the morning, tilting his chin up as Arthur closes his eyes. 

And how vulnerable and intimate it is, to touch his face like this, to have his throat bare to him, arched and relaxed, his adams apple bobbing once as he swallows, eyelids flickering once as if he’ll open them, but never does – still too unused to the glare of the incandescent light bulbs above them. 

“Sire,” Merlin says, quietly, in these moments – one of the few times he indulges and says the word, like it’s a prayer, like it’s the only word he knows and remembers, and always, always delights in the way Arthur shivers. 

He prepares the strop, leaving Arthur sitting on the edge of the tub, Merlin a few steps away from him, leaving him to wonder just when Merlin will lay his hands on him again. He strops the razor, running it down and pushing the razor across the linen, down and away from his body, dragging the entire edge of the razor along the strop. He does this for a few long moments, and then turns the strop to the leather side and repeats it, until the razor is prepared and sharpened properly. 

He takes up the shaving brush and runs it under the water, tapping it gently against the side of the sink to dismiss the extra water. Arthur asked him once, as he always does when encountering Merlin’s minutiae of detail in manual work, why he doesn’t do all this with magic. Merlin doesn’t remember what he exactly said – probably that he is used to it, but also that there’s a certain magic to working on one’s own merits and hands. He doesn’t remember Arthur’s reply – probably a softened look for a flicker of a moment, and then probably some snide comment about Merlin’s general lack of merits and the most fumbling of hands. 

(This is not true. Merlin remembers this moment perfectly, as he does most moments with Arthur – he remembers the way Arthur’s eyes seemed to smile even when he was frowning thoughtfully and teasing him. Merlin remembers his reply to be the most mature of responses: to make Arthur’s pants drop to the floor with magic. He remembers Arthur’s indignant squawk, the way color bloomed across his cheeks. Most of all, Merlin remembers being happy – laughing and laughing, something he is still getting used to.) 

He swirls the shaving brush in the shaving cream, in the little ceramic bowl, working until it’s in a lather. And then he returns to Arthur’s side – indeed, never having strayed too far from that side – and touches the tip of the brush, lathered with the cream, to his face. He works him as if he is an artist, painting across his cheek and along the sharp, squared line of his jaw. He hears that delightful, raw sound of the stubble catching against each individual brush, a subtly crisp sound. The boar bristle of the brush glides across Arthur’s face – whose only response is to sigh out, just slightly, at the first contact, and this has always been his response. His eyelids flutter again, and Merlin resists the urge to lean in and kiss him and instead focuses on lathering up his entire face, chasing after his stubble and sliding in slow, circular motions – soothing the both of them in the quiet, gentle, loved monotony of the movement, so achingly familiar it weighs between them. 

He lets his fingers linger against his face, gently, even once he’s done and sets the brush back down beside the bowl. He smiles a little, tracing his eyes over Arthur’s face, who keeps his eyes closed, face relaxed and trusting, shoulders slumped a little. 

He picks up the straight razor, holding it carefully and touching two fingers to the underside of his jaw, guiding his face into the position he wants. And then he drags the blade slowly, gently, along the grain of his stubble. He loves to shave Arthur – and yet he mourns the loss of that shadow across his face, has spent many an afternoon just nuzzling against his cheek to feel that burn, delighting at the way the days pass and the beard starts to grow in, and his thighs redden with it when Arthur ducks down against him, touches at him with lips and smiles and nuzzles. But like this is good, too – to see him so closely, to hold him so gently, to know how completely trusted he is, even after all this time. 

He glides the razor down along the grain, pulling back to survey his face critically. His movements are short and purposeful, mindful, always, never to cut Arthur. Arthur, for his part, stays perfectly still, eyes closed the entire time as Merlin works, breathing even and gentle – his interest and happiness betrayed only the few times he sighs out, content. 

Merlin pulls back once the first cheek is done, running the blade through the collected warm water in the basin of the sink, mindful to rid the blade’s edge of hair and cream. There are stray bits left on Arthur’s cheek, but he’ll get that later. For now, he merely delights in the process of it – never a chore, always a joy. 

Merlin works diligently, across both cheeks and the tender spot between lips and nose, along the slope of his jaw. He saves the chin for last, always the tricky part – and Merlin remembers the early days of tending to Arthur when he would accidentally cut Arthur’s chin, almost every single time. Now it is with ease that he works over the chin, his touch gentle and precise as it dips down, working at the soft shadows of his neck. He cleans the razor as he goes. 

Once he’s done, he sets the razor down and fetches the warmed towel, rubbing it across his face, ridding him of the lingering cream, and squints critically as he sets the towel down and retrieves the shaving cream gain, reapplying it. 

“Easier than before,” Arthur mutters and gets a dab of shaving cream on his lip for his troubles. 

Merlin smiles, and swipes his thumb across his lip before Arthur can whine too badly. “The soap’s certainly better in this era.” 

“Hm,” Arthur agrees, and blinks his eyes open finally to watch Merlin as he studies Arthur’s face, swiping the boar bristle across his cheeks again, relathering his face for the second shave – this time against the grain. As before, his touch is reverent and gentle, as an artist surveys his half-completed painting. 

Merlin tips his face accordingly and works the razor against the grain now, shaving and catching the last bits of stubble still stubbornly remaining. He works in silence, focused on his task at hand. 

Once he’s done – and the second time is always faster – he uses magic to splash cool water against Arthur’s face, ridding him of the cream before he presses the towel to his face, drying him off and giving him a cursory glance over, to make sure that he’s gotten everything. And then he applies the aftershave lotion, a pungent but pleasant smell as he pats his hands gently against Arthur’s cheeks.

“There,” he says, softly. “All done, Sire.” 

He turns away and cares for the razor, cleaning it and drying it and applying oil to the hinge as it dries, caring for the razor he’s had for years now. 

“… Did you ever do this for anyone else?” Arthur asks, quietly, as if he is uncertain of the answer, and Merlin knows he is watching him in profile very closely for any silent reaction he doesn’t voice. 

He needn’t worry, though, regardless – Merlin made a promise to himself, so long ago, that he would never lie to Arthur again. And in this case, there’s no hesitancy when he shakes his head. 

“No. Never.” 

Arthur is quiet, but a hand touches his and he tugs him back to him and Merlin ducks his head, kissing him gently – lingering, relishing the feel and taste of it, the sweetly intimate smell and feel of Arthur against him. 

“Well then,” Merlin breathes out once he pulls out of the kiss, regretfully, lingering and breathing out. “My turn, then?”

“Leave it today,” Arthur says with a shrug and the hand that slides up into his hair drags across his cheek in a way that makes Merlin shiver. 

Even though he also tuts a little. “Why do you never listen to me when I tell you to leave yours?”

“Because I would never deny you the pleasure of the job itself,” Arthur says with a rather vain sniff and that glittering conceitedness in his eyes that always makes Merlin want to knock him down a peg. But in this particular case, Merlin can’t even summon up the words to deny as much – he does like shaving Arthur, after all. 

“Fine,” he sighs, perhaps more dramatically than he normally would, and climbs rather purposefully into Arthur’s lap, smiling a little when Arthur curls an arm obediently around his waist, the other hand sliding into his hair. 

Merlin kisses him again, hands cupping his face gently, thumbs sliding across soft cheeks.


End file.
